The union ministry of power on Thursday gave in-principle approval to allocate 100% domestic coal to Punjab, it being a landlocked state, the Punjab government has claimed.

The union ministry of power on Thursday gave in-principle approval to allocate 100% domestic coal to Punjab, it being a landlocked state, the Punjab government has claimed.

The decision was taken at a meeting of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal with a battery of senior officers of the union coal and power ministries headed by Piyush Goyal.

The government claimed that the power secretary also agreed to the proposal to for mulate a policy to allocate 100% coal from domestic sources to landlocked states and imported coal to coastal states.

On the enhancement of coal linkage to Talwandi Sabo and Rajpura power plants, the CM said the standing linkage committee of coal might be asked to enhance coal linkage because capacity of the Talwandi Sabo power project had been increased from 1,800 to 1,980 MW whereas that of Rajpura thermal power plant had been increased from 1,200 to 1,400 MW. He said the decision would immensely benefit these power plants to run on their optimum capacities.

Responding to another issue related to the Goindwal Sahib power plant set up by GVK Power, the chief minister said though the project had been completed, it was not operational as GVK had been unable to make its allotted mines functional due to issues related with the Jharkhand government.

He urged the ministry of power to provide tapering linkage of 2 lakh tonnes per month for Goindwal Sahib Plant of the GVK.